Comments (9)

1. Project Devon's room is done - at least for Dave and I.
2. We finished painting yesterday afternoon, a nice vibrant green.
3. Dev and I moved most of his furniture back in last night.
4. Dev and I put his bookshelf up just now.
5. Now it's up to Dev to finish the room by putting all his stuff away.
6. I called in sick today, my muscles are so sore from painting.
7. I'm going to go start a batch of bread right away.
8. I think we may make cookies too so Dev has some munchies for this week.
9. The sun is shining so perfectly right now.
10. Off to proof some yeast for bread.

--

Heather

High school football player Devon James (15)

A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please - Gandhi

I read Jay a couple of internet articles yesterday on the likelyhood of winning the lottery.

Am actually thinking of posting another thread here on kids/allowances/spending money (I know we've done one before) because I swear Jay's turning into a money addict, if he has money he must spend it NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!! Which makes me sad, because it's something we've been working on for years now, teaching how to use money responsibly, etc.

We went to SARCAN Thursday, he got $10 from bottles he's collected, and he went to the bank and changed it to US bills. I warned him, are you sure? He said yup. Well of course today he wanted to spend the US cash. I told him that from now til summer I was in charge of his money, and he would have to stick to the budget we previously had worked out together. Roughly, $1 to savings, $3 to collections, $3 on whatever (candy).

Rob thinks I'm crazy, he thinks Jay is very careful and aware of his money. But of course Rob's not the one who gets to listen to the whining, etc. and clean up messes of the stuff Jay brings home that he's bought just for the sake of spending money NOW.

oh, today is my day for rants (sorry Rhonda about your FB post). I swear, I'm not crazy.

Anyway, the lottery is Jay and sadly Rob's idea of retirement planning. So it's kind of a sore spot for me.

I watched an interesting discussion on Anderson today about saving money. They had extreme couponing, and a family who built a 158 square foot house to cut down on costs, and a family who managed to go an entire month without spending a penny (other than the mortgage and utilities). I would love to be better with our money - I think we are good, but I think we could be better. The problem with savings is that the whole family needs to be on board -- if I try to cut back on spending and then I see Dom has gone to Subway for lunch, it's going to cause trouble. I love our ING accounts for squirreling away money without realizing it's there... I have an account for each of the kids, one for Dom's Leader Post route, one for my Epicure money (which is currently a "Let's Go to Europe" fund). So I just transfer money from our bank into those ING accounts and then forget about them. If that money sat in out bank account, it would get wasted on little things here and there.

I think one of the things that really caught my attention with the people who didn't spend anything for a month is that they said their house was so much cleaner/tidier. And same with the people who moved into the super tiny house -- it was so neat and everything was so efficient. I wish I could get our house to that point, but it's just so hard.

That would be the other good thing about moving into the lottery house... I would take the time to ONLY move the things we need from this house, and donate the rest to charity or sell it. It would be great to start from scratch with just the bare necessities, and then make the extra effort not to collect clutter.

Yeah, I remember seeing an Oprah episode all those years ago, showing how families lived in different countries. It was impressive how some people (most people) make due with so much less stuff than we do!

I feel the same way about saving/spending money. My library + subbing cash goes into a different bank than Rob's pay and our child tax. That money is then our only savings. I hate it, but don't know a better solution.

For example, I've always said Rob needs to save his vacation pay, instead of getting it put on every cheque. But he won't, and so we don't get vacations (as previously mentioned, we only went to BC at the holidays because my parents paid). I just don't get it, but can't/won't control him anymore than I do.

Quick side note: my mom's mom took my grandfather's paycheque every week, and gave him an allowance out of it. He had no control over the money at all, because she felt he "wasted" some money out of his 1rst paycheque, so she never let him have it again. True story! Can you imagine (or as in my case, dream? Just kidding).

My biggest problem right now is remembering to spend my money...as in pay the bills. The money is there, the memory is not. Half-assed thinking of switching back to paper bills so I don't have to remember so many freaking passwords to get into each damn account to find out how much I owe. Why can't saskenergy just tell me how much the bill is in my reminder email.

My biggest problem right now is remembering to spend my money...as in pay the bills. The money is there, the memory is not. Half-assed thinking of switching back to paper bills so I don't have to remember so many freaking passwords to get into each damn account to find out how much I owe. Why can't saskenergy just tell me how much the bill is in my reminder email.